While that can be a problem in other areas of the law as well, most notably public defense, oversight is particularly weak in immigration law. Judges, burdened by crushing caseloads, may tolerate bad attorneys in their courtroom both because they want to move on to the next case and because the judges figure that poor counsel "is better than none at all," Benson says. Unlike in criminal court, there's no right to representation in immigration proceedings.
And who besides judges are going to know when immigration attorneys are negligent? Clients can complain to the Bar Association, which is empowered to suspend attorneys on its own as well as to seek disbarment orders from the state Supreme Court. However, says Benson: "When you are ineffective, your clients get deported."
Jonathan Wilcox
Peter Mumford
American-born Celeste Addai (shown with son Kwasi) is forced to meet in secret with her husband, who could be deported at any time.
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But if many don't complain to the bar for that reason, some do, either because they remain here illegally or find other lawyers for appeals. Since 1997, as a result of such complaints, the Bar Association has disciplined at least 27 immigration attorneys, according to a Seattle Weekly review of Bar Association records. Ten of those cases have resulted in disbarment, or in an attorney stepping down in lieu of disbarment.
Dan Danilov was one of the latter cases. Danilov, the child of Russian émigrés, was once a ubiquitous presence in the field—sought out by Cold War refugees, quoted by the media when immigration stories came up, and draped with gold jewelry from all the money he made from his practice.
That came to an end in 2002, when a Bar Association hearing officer recommended that Danilov be disbarred due to misconduct in seven cases. Among the findings: Danilov failed to file documents he had claimed to, didn't adequately research his cases, told a client he would handle her case for $5,000 and then demanded $5,000 more, and, in one badly handled case, assigned an associate who fell asleep at a hearing.
Danilov, then in his 70s, went on "inactive" status due to an unspecified disability and was never formally disbarred.
The remarkable thing about Salazar's extensive file is that he kept making the same mistakes again. In the Bar Association's first disciplinary proceeding, in 1990, Salazar admitted he had not done work he'd promised to do (seek extension of a client's work visa and apply for the client's permanent residency). In another case heard at the same hearing, a client testified that he had hired Salazar to apply for a work visa, but no documents were ever submitted. (Salazar claimed he'd told the client he wouldn't handle the case. With the facts in dispute, Salazar was cited for "failing to clearly and effectively" communicate with his client.)
During the proceedings, Salazar told the Bar Association that he had added staff and started using a computerized calendar, because the complaints had impressed upon him the need to keep track of cases and communicate with his clients. Citing Salazar's "efforts to improve," the Bar Association chose to put a "letter of censure" in the attorney's file rather than suspend him.
Yet by 1994, a client had again complained to the Bar Association that Salazar had failed to follow through, in this case by filing an appeal in criminal court, and had also neglected to keep his client informed of what was happening. The Bar Association "admonished" Salazar, an even softer sanction than a censure.
The bar admonished him again in 1998 for failing to cooperate with investigations into other matters, and in 1999 for submitting an immigration appeal one day late. Another missed deadline on an immigration appeal earned him a censure in 2001.
In 2005, the bar suspended him for similar misconduct, but only for 30 days. The association went back to more lenient treatment—a "reprimand" (similar to a censure, a sanction the bar no longer uses)—in 2008 after the association found that Salazar had misrepresented his client's position in settlement talks.
Asked in an interview why the bar had not taken firmer action before now, bar officials declined to address the specifics of Salazar's case. However, external relations director Steve Larsen noted that the bar has to maintain "a real delicate balance. It's a pretty serious thing to say, 'We're going to take your livelihood away.'"
In addition to the Chaudhary case, there are two others in which, according to hearing officer Boyce's findings, Salazar failed to inform clients of deportation orders until they had little or no chance to appeal. In another case, the attorney did no work at all for seven months, then prepared a motion that he never filed; in yet another, Salazar missed an obvious route to legal residency for the wife and children of a green-card holder.
If Salazar is disbarred by the state Supreme Court, it won't be the end of the story. Clients are always left hanging when that happens, but the hazard is much greater here, given his volume of cases.
"We are facing a disaster," Bart Klein wrote in a letter to the bar in early March. "As far as I can tell, Mr. Salazar has been collecting case after case, with no intention of completing the work, and it appears, since he is training no associates, [plans] to take off with the money."
